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Why black-on-black crime continues to be a thing: Paradkar

What do people really mean when they raise the question of black-on-black crime?

G20 summit protesters clash with riot police in downtown Toronto in June 2010. Rghts activists, the public and the media slammed police for using excessive force and criminalizing lawful protesters. Now imagine, if instead of outrage, the reaction was indifference, and that people supported the idea that the predominantly white protesters deserved what they got, Shree Paradkar writes.
(Darren Calabrese / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO)

Every time the issue of police brutality against blacks comes up the question of black-on-black crime looms like a brick wall against which to bang your head.

Even when black people harm other blacks, they do so for the same depraved reasons as do criminals of other races, NOT for being black. This fundamental difference between violence inflicted by police and by other blacks is the root of racial discontent and fear.

That should be the end of the argument, but the idea of black-on-black crime as a legitimate issue is so insidiously ingrained in people’s psyches that it leaves them with a bad case of chronic supremacy.

Unpack the term and it leads to the suggestion — and even belief — that blacks are more prone to criminality and violence, that if they want change, they must change, and that, really, they have only themselves to blame.

This kind of victim-shaming has many shortcomings, but a couple stick out:

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1) It has no basis in fact, i.e. it doesn’t exist.

Are there more black criminals than others, as a percentage of the population? In Canada we don’t know. As with any community, the vast majority of people are law-abiding.

“We also know that most pedophiles are white. Does that mean that every time there’s a case of such a crime that all white males deserve to be stereotyped, and stopped and searched?” University of Toronto criminologist Scott Wortley had asked the Star, back in 2002.

Regrettably, Canada does not record race-based crime statistics, although our southern neighbour does. The FBI crime report (2014) says when it comes to violent arrests, whites accounted for 59.4 per cent of those arrests. FBI studies show crime is racially segregated — most people are killed or maimed by someone they know. The percentage of whites murdered by whites mirrors that of blacks by blacks.

Supposed black criminality has been used over centuries to justify slavery, resist reconstruction, rationalize segregation and fight against civil rights. By the ’80s, the war on drugs and tough on crime mantras were euphemisms for war on blacks. Popular culture did everything in its power to perpetuate the myth. (Think the godawful 1915 D.W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation.)

Science, though, found no evidence to back it up. Over the years, researchers found high rates of delinquency among black juveniles, but could not conclude they are higher than for whites, even in poorer areas.

This was because it is impossible to replicate the racial barriers to upward mobility, argued Chicago researchers Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay in 1942.

Even today, at similarly low-incomes, blacks and whites live in vastly different environments in which to raise their children.

2) It epitomizes fear-based racial typecasting.

The concept of blacks as criminals exposes the rejection of blacks as individual humans — strong and intelligent as well as weak and flawed — and espousal of them as a threatening mass of thugs who need to be kept in check.

The double standard becomes obvious with incidents such as the Toronto police clampdown of G20 protests in June 2010. Human rights activists, the public and the media slammed police for using excessive force and criminalizing lawful protesters. Now imagine, if instead of outrage, the reaction was indifference, and that people supported the idea that the predominantly white protesters deserved what they got, given the prevalence of white-on-white crime.

Police had recently nabbed Russell Williams, a hotshot military commander, no less, for stalking, raping and murdering, arrested two white men for allegedly stealing from the dying in hospitals, and were part of a cross-border gun raid that led to the arrest of the white kingpin of a massive criminal organization. This and more against the constant background hum of crimes associated with white biker gangs and mobsters.

Blacks are not any more homogenous than are whites, yet the illogical co-relation between the actions of criminals and police brutality is stridently promoted.

Forget criminals, the attitude extends to do-gooders as well. While white rights’ advocates are encouraged, or tolerated, and in any case, accommodated, for exercising their democratic right to free speech, black activists are labelled murderers and terrorists.

On Monday evening, the fiery young activists from Black Lives Matter Toronto held an hour-long Facebook live video chat following news that Pride members had voted to ban police floats from their parade. They spoke of how, even at Pride 2016, where they were the honoured guests, police questioned their presence and asked to see their Pride permits.

These university-educated social disruptors who have channeled their rage to fight for equality are maligned because their confidence intimidates people.

“We represent possibility. Possibility is what is denied to so many of us. Every day.” BLM-TO co-founder Janaya Khan said.

Such statements threaten to upend the existing hierarchy of power. For those taking refuge in ‘what about black-on-black crime’ arguments, that is beyond tolerance.

Clarification Feb. 3, 2017: In an earlier version of this article, I had stated:

Are there more black criminals than others, as a percentage of the population? No, say criminologists.

The correct answer in Canada is, we don't know, as we don't collect the data.

In answer to the question, “Are blacks inherently predisposed to criminality?” criminologists have said no.

Shree Paradkar tackles issues of race and gender. You can follow her @shreeparadkar

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